3.5. Learning and assessment

E-EVALINTO aims to promote peer mentorship to reduce early school leaving among migrant students and to acknowledge the value of interculturality, as well as develop an ICT framework for assessing, managing and developing activities for intercultural contexts. The Erasmus+ funded project focuses on decision-making processes and the identification of different patterns in the situations analysed.

Interactive Groups is one of the Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) identified in the research project INCLUD-ED. INCLUD-ED analysed educational strategies that contribute to overcoming inequalities and promote social cohesion, and those generating social exclusion, particularly focusing on vulnerable and marginalised groups. Interactive Groups are used to improve the education of children and youth in different contexts. They consist of grouping students in a class into small heterogeneous groups, each of them supported by an adult. Each of these groups is organised around four or five students, in a heterogeneous way regarding ability level, gender, culture, language and ethnicity. This example provides an understanding of IG and the results of their practice.

The Joaquim Ruyra Elementary School is located in a disadvantaged suburban district of Barcelona. In the 2016-2017 school year, 92% students were immigrants representing 28 different nationalities (including Pakistan, Morocco, Georgia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, Senegal, and the USA) or from minority background (Romani). The school has a 40% mobility rate.  

National and international press have referred to the school as the miracle school as it had achieved academic outcomes above the average in the Catalan standardised tests, outperforming elite schools in the Catalonia region.

All classes in the school feature group work 40% to 60% of the time. The groups mix students of different abilities, genders and nationalities.  The small groups are designed to ensure that no one is left out, and students are encouraged to participate actively.  Each group is facilitated by an adult (e.g. a classroom assistants, a parent).  Psychologists and special education teachers may also work in the classrooms, and they support volunteer parents, teachers and the students.  The extra support and student interaction are considered as essential for supporting and reinforcing children’s learning. 

ProsocialLearn is creating fun educational games for children to learn social and emotional well-being skills. By working together, teachers and game developers are creating new learning opportunities for inclusive education. The project wants to create a prosocial game development and distribution platform in order to distribute prosocial digital games from game companies to the educational sector and work with communities of teachers in Europe to evaluate their approach. Digital games can be tailored to teach the benefits of cooperation, as well as the ability to recognise the emotions of others and express trustworthiness – prosocial skills – helping children to appreciate team-work, recognise the value of understanding other people’s needs and achieve academically.
The games are targeted in particular at children at risk of social exclusion, who find it difficult to show empathy, and include hidden indicators that measure the development of a child’s skills. ProsocialLearn also developed a platform where teachers can track their pupils’ progress and plan lessons that incorporate the games.

The ‘Raising the Achievement of All Learners in Inclusive Education’ (RA) project aimed to provide evidence of effective practice in raising achievement and building the capacity of schools and communities to include and support all learners.

To improve students’ learning outcomes and the level of engagement with the school has developed a transformation project structured around seven key elements for school improvement: school climate, school image, academic excellence, methodological change, development of emotional intelligence, introduction of art in school and openness to the community. During the first years of the project, the emphasis was made on the two key areas: methodological change through the implementation of project-based learning and strengthening links of the school with families and communities.